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Thinking about upgrading... need advice

T

tharpb35

n00b
Joined
Mar 4, 2008
Messages
7
Hello all,

I'm thinking about upgrading my video card. Currently running a Sapphire Radeon HD 4850x2 with 2GB of DDR3 RAM. I was using an HIS Radeon HD 3870 Turbo before it died on me.

Anyway, I was thinking of going to the new Radeon HD 6900 series, but concerned over what would be most beneficial. After all, my cards have sustained for 2 years + now and looking for the same results.

I was thinking of going Crossfire 6950 2GB versions. What kind of increase in performance would I see? Would it actually be beneficial sine I just got a new HDMI monitor and playing games at 1920 x 1200? My 4850x2 only used DVI so is that going to affect anything?

I was reading reviews and performances and looking for a long term solution that would benefit for now and way down the road.

The only concern is bottlnecking my system. It is as follows:

Windows 7 64 bit
MSI K9A2 Platinum
AMD Phenom IIx4 940 @ 3.2
8 GB OCZ Reaper DDR2 800
2 Seagate 7200 RPM Raid 0
700watt CoolerMaster PSU

I think I would have to upgrade a few things.
 
I don't think that PSU will be enough for HD 6950 Crossfire. Not enough amperage on the +12V rail to cover that much power.

For now I say you go with a single HD 6950 or HD 6970 and see what happens.
 
50A on the 12V rail isn't enough?

Cause from what I am reading... the 6950's have a "power cap" at 200watt draw. Times that by 2 and that is 400 watts give or take a bit of juice. A normal system usually runs about 200 watts, and I don't by any means have too many devices relying on power. I have 2 120mm fans and about 4-5 USB devices. So wouldn't 700 watts with a 50A 12V rail be sufficient?
 
Last edited:
tharpb35 said:
50A on the 12V rail isn't enough?
Click to expand...

A Phenom II 940 + mobo + RAM + single HDD would use about 180W at full load. Two HD 6950 2GB cards would use about 436W at full GPU load. That's 616W at full load. 16W over but still not enough for that kind of setup. You're basically pushing that PSU to its limits even without that 16W over.
 
Oh ok... thanks for the clarification.

Looks like I'm upgrading my PSU then. Thanks for the help, I appreciate the feedback.
 
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